The present invention generally relates to watercraft and more particularly to a catamaran with a forward hinged underwing or bridgework lowerable at sea to insert or extract person(s), article(s), and/or equipment, into or from the water, or onto or from the land, or onto or from rock piles, rock jetties, break walls; insert or extract submarines into or from the water; assist in the efforts of homeland security, military, police and law enforcement, fire-fighting, rescue, and like operations; assist in high speed rescue excursions, including under-fire personnel recovery; assist in turbulent and turbid water rescue, including rescue and recovery from water around dams and waterfalls; assist in aircraft and aircraft personnel recovery; assist in the interdiction of illegal watercraft (smugglers, etc.) and their personnel, contrabands, materials, etc.; assist in buoy and wall servicing at the proper height; and/or provide for the roll on and roll off capabilities of wheelchairs, carts with wheel(s), and specially designed gurneys for rescue operations.
The superior nautical qualities of catamaran type watercraft are well known. Their high beam-to-length ratio and their shallow draft provide desirable stability and resistance to capsizing. In addition, some specialized catamarans offer high speed, extremely smooth ride, enhanced stability, and greater maneuverability due to their hull shape and propulsion location. This combination of improved speed, stability, ride, and maneuverability provides a unique solution to many age-old problems with the current technologies of landing craft (i.e., landing craft are very slow, unstable in comparison, difficult to maneuver, and are wet as a transport platform). Such superior nautical qualities make catamaran watercraft ideally suited for a variety of inland waterway, lake, close to shore, and open ocean tasks. Such tasks include, inter alia, those listed above. For present purposes, “at sea” means any body of water upon which the inventive catamaran can operate, including, inter alia, inland waterway, lake, ocean, sea, or like body of water.
One drawback against other vessel types relates to the superior ability of the catamaran's skipper or crewman to easily accomplish the enumerated tasks. Heretofore, U.S. Pat. No. 5,173,182 proposes an environmental work vessel having a catamaran hull and a pivotally mounted debris scoop mounted between the pontoons. U.S. Pat. No. 3,815,541 proposes a pontoon houseboat having capacity to receive and retain a small craft between the pontoons. In FIGS. 22 and 23, a hinged platform that lowers into the water is disclosed. U.S. Pat. No. 4,020,777 proposes catamaran having a hinged platform between the two pontoons that lowers for retrieving buoys from the water. U.S. Pat. No. 4,545,315 proposes a remote control catamaran type craft with a hinged platform disposed between the pontoons, which platform lowers to retrieve fowl from the water during hunting trips.
Despite such prior proposals, there still exists a need in the art to modify a catamaran or pontoon-type watercraft so that it can easily perform the tasks listed above. It is to such need that the present invention is addressed.